When I listen to music I listen to albums. I can count the number of singles I’ve bought in my life on a single hand, and have never purchased a song independent of its album online.

I consider a song without its album a quote out of context, or an abstract thumbnail only vaguely resembling the complete image. I believe many artists craft albums as cohesive wholes, and listening to an independent song doesn’t take advantage of the entire work. How many times have you heard someone say, “I bought the album because of that cool song, but the rest of it sucks.” In my world that person (oddly enough) bought an entire album they don’t like with a rogue song in it they do. Go figure.

I do enjoy a clever playlist—there is nothing like a series of songs that carry a beat, emotion, intensity, or even tell a coherent story. A well-crafted playlist can be just as good as any album by itself; for me they serve two different but complimentary purposes. Unfortunately however I rarely have time to create a playlist that is anywhere near my expectations, and much of the software that I have used that attempts to do so somehow falls short. So how did I, serial play-it-straight-through-or-nothin listener turn shuffle-ite?

It started with wanting something fresh and unexpected from my music library, and that’s exactly what it serves up:

1. Bach: Piano Concerto #5 in A minor
2. Snoop Dogg: Gin n’ Juice
3. ColdPlay: The Scientist
4. Blonde Redhead: Vague
5. Johnny Cash: Don’t Take Your Guns to Town

These are the first five songs at the top of my current playlist. It’s chaotic, uncrafted, and almost disturbingly eclectic. Sure the shuffle sifts up a lot of tripe from time to time, but do you know what’s fantastic about the shuffle? I have 100 Gigs of music of which I listen to 10. Not anymore.

All Artists > Shuffle > Play